1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates generally to an electrical device, and more specifically, to a power meter having multiple Ethernet ports.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Power meters are used in industrial and energy utility applications to provide telemetry on power usage and power quality, including: transmitting power, energy, voltage and current readings, using serial communications channels. Some currently available power meters also have the capability to record waveforms based on predefined recording thresholds and transmit the waveform data.
In recent years, the industry has shifted from serial to Ethernet communication architectures allowing for faster data throughput and the ability to access data via the Internet. Because of this shift, there is a desire in the industry to provide meter readings over the Internet while still allowing access of the meters over an internal LAN for telemetry, control and programming. Currently, to accomplish these tasks, operators have been required to set up routers to control access to the meters. Unfortunately, this method is vulnerable to intruders, or hackers, who can potentially access the internal LAN via the Internet. Therefore, this security concern discourages the industry from allowing access to power meters via the Internet. Accordingly, a need exists for a power meter having two Ethernet ports, each of which is independent and communicatively isolated from each other in a manner which enables control of metering functions by authorized personnel via a LAN while preventing intrusion and malicious modification of these functions from unauthorized users via the Internet.